A Change of Lives
by JustVilda Potter
Summary: Second part of the Powers Trilogy! It's been four months since the party, and the quads are living partly new lives. But then a heated argument comes along, and the aftermath changes everything.
1. Just-the-Four-of-us Tuesday

**Here's the new story! Woohoo! The Super Secret sequel!**

**I highly recommend you go read The Super Secret (if you haven't already) before you read this, as this is pretty much part 2 of that story.**

* * *

Four months had passed. Four whole months since that school party. Or as the quads often referred to it; _The Party of Change_. As you remember, they exposed their powers at that party. Since then everything just went crazy. The quads started using their powers in public, leading to the powers developing faster than before.

Dawn quickly learned to teleport a few select objects. Many books and items of clothing had disappeared completely during her learning process. Some were found in trees outside, while some hadn't been seen for months. But now it was under control. Pretty much...

Ricky figured out he could make things invisible for only specific persons by accident. He often used this on Tom and Anne, by making things he would get in trouble for invisible. It worked every time. They hadn't even figured out he could make things invisible for only them.

Dicky was the one who developed slowest, but he at least managed to shrink himself. He could go to the size of a mouse and back to normal in ten seconds if he wished for it. Trust me when I say he did this a lot.

Nicky had learned to levitate on command, and would regularly do it. He couldn't fly around or anything, just levitate a few inches above the ground, but it was definitely good enough for him, as he did it at least twice a day. Sometimes it really tired him out though, and afterwards he could be completely drained of energy.

Some things had stayed the same though after that day. The sibling bickering; Still there. Their attitudes and personalities; The same. But one thing that did change was their friendship situation. They of course kept their old friends, but some new people joined the team. Those people were of course Angelina, Millie and Malou.

The Monday after the dance, Dicky and Angelina had officially started dating, and they still had one of those cute middle school relationships. Millie and Ricky didn't get anywhere, but turned into the best of friends. And Nicky and Malou... well, you're just gonna have to keep reading to see.

It was now summer break, and the middle of the incredibly hot July. Dawn was standing in the kitchen, her elbows leaning on the kitchen counter, and a bowl of melting ice cream in her hands. She blew a sweaty strand of hair out of her face as she checked the clock on the wall. Ten minutes until Mae would show up. She could easily finish the ice cream in that time. The heat was just killing her though. Right now she _needed_ to get out of that kitchen before she got the same fate as her ice cream.

She teleported out into the living room, and found Dicky laying on the couch, and Ricky sitting in the red armchair.

"What are you two doing here?!" she groaned when she saw them.

"Nicky forced us out of our room again," Ricky answered.

"Just get back up there!" Dawn gestured to the staircase.

"We can't," Dicky said.

"Why exactly?" Dawn sat down in the patterned armchair.

"The door's locked."

"Just go somewhere else then! You can't be here!" Dawn demanded.

"Why can't we be here? It's not _your_ living room," Ricky asked.

"Mae's coming in ten minutes for our Just-the-two-of-us Tuesday," Dawn quickly explained. "and we can't be in my room. Mom's still cleaning up the juice."

Fifteen minutes ago, Dawn had spilled out an entire box of juice while practicing her object teleportation.

"We were here first. So _you _have to find another place to hang out with Mae," Ricky stated plainly.

Dawn sighed loudly to express her disappointment in them, before she dug her spoon into her ice cream again. It wasn't even ice cream anymore. It was just a lukewarm chocolate and strawberry sauce. Irritably, Dawn put the bowl on the coffee table, and got out of the chair. She ran over to the stairs, and teleported up to the second floor.

Whatever Nicky was doing in the boys' room that was so important could wait. Dawn and Mae needed the living room for their hang session.

She sprinted the first few meters before teleporting into the boys room. What she found in there made her regret coming in there at all. Nicky was sitting on his bed, his lips calmly pressed against Malou's. The second he heard the sound of Dawn teleporting, he practically threw himself off the bed.

"Get out!"

Dawn teleported out as fast as she could. Nicky swung the door open with his powers, making it hit the wall as Dawn ran away.

"Dawn!"

"No!" Dawn shouted back.

She teleported away, and appeared in the armchair she sat in a minute ago. The terrified expression on her face made Ricky and Dicky question her immediately.

"What happened?" Ricky leaned forward.

"Did you see a ghost?" Dicky asked, with full seriousness as he sat up.

Dawn took a short moment to just breath heavily.

"Nicky... and Malou... were just making out in your room."

Dicky and Ricky's jaws both dropped.

"What!?" they both stared at her in shock.

Right then Nicky came running down the stairs. Everyone turned their heads. Nicky stopped halfway when he saw their faces. The second he saw them he knew Dawn had told them. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. Instead he turned and bolted up the stairs again. It didn't take a second for his siblings to fly out of their seats and follow him. Dawn caught up with him just as the boys' room door slammed behind him. Unfortunately for her, she unwillingly froze in place outside, and couldn't move, or teleport.

"Nicky, let go!" she shouted.

"No!" Nicky shouted from inside the room.

"What are you doing?" Malou asked.

"Keeping them out."

Nicky was heavily focusing on both the door and Dawn outside. Dawn couldn't teleport in when he held her, and as long as he kept the door under his control, Ricky couldn't make it invisible either.

"Did you tell them?" Malou stepped off Nicky's bed, and walked over to him.

"No. _Dawn _told them."

"What was I supposed to do!?" Dawn shouted from the other side of the door. "Not tell them?"

"Yeah!" Nicky shouted back.

"Come on, Nicky! Just let go, I promise I won't teleport in."

"Fine!"

Nicky unfroze Dawn, who immediately after teleported right in. Nicky groaned and tilted his head back.

"Can we _please_ do this later?" he begged as Ricky and Dicky stepped in. "I'll explain when Mae and Malou aren't here"

Dawn breathed in through her nose.

"Okay" She looked back at Ricky and Dicky. "Okay."

"The _second _they're gone," Ricky demanded.

The quads nodded to each other in a shaky, extremely awkward silence.

"Can you get out now?" Nicky asked quickly, and broke the silence.

The older three nodded, and smiled awkward fake smiles. Nicky slammed and locked the door with his mind as fast as they were out, and he turned back to Malou.

"You wanna...," Malou did a quick air kiss.

They both started giggling.

"Yeah," Nicky nodded.

They walked over to Nicky's bed again, where they sat down, and continued what Dawn had interrupted.

Meanwhile, Dawn _walked_ down the stairs, and went over and opened the door.

"Hey Mae," She still had the kind of awkward tone in her voice.

Mae immediately frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Dawn faked, and failed.

Mae tilted her head to the side with a disappointed face.

"I walked in on my brother making out with his girlfriend"

Mae's jaw dropped immediately.

"Well, now I know what this Just-the-two-of-us Tuesday will be about."

Her shocked expression disappeared when she saw Dicky and Ricky on the couch. Now she was just confused.

"Which one of you was it?" She asked, dragging out on her words, while pointing her finger forward and back between the two boys.

"Nicky," Both of them answered in unison.

The shocked expression was back.

"So Mae," Dawn interrupted. "Just-the-two-of-us Tuesday will be Just-the-_four_-of-us Tuesday today."

* * *

**Boom! Throwing you right into action with sibling drama, and some romance. This was the start of the Super Secret sequel. _A Change of Lives_, what could that mean? Well, you're gonna find out soon!**


	2. The Argument

The minute-hand on the clock in the Harpers' kitchen snapped to the _12_, making it 5 pm. An alarm went off on Nicky's phone, totally interrupting the YouTube video he and Malou were watching.

Sighing, Nicky swept the notification to the side.

"I can't believe it's 5 pm already," he glanced at Malou, who was resting her head on his shoulder.

"Well you know what that means," Malou said, straightening herself up.

"You're going to your cousin's birthday party."

"And we'll see each other tomorrow."

Malou gave Nicky a quick peck on the lips before the two of them stood up and started walking out of the boys' room.

"We gotta finish watching that video then," Malou nodded to Nicky's phone on his bed.

"Of course."

They ran down the stairs, and Nicky swung the front door open.

"See you tomorrow," Nicky waved Malou off as she walked out the front door.

He watched her walk off for a few seconds before closing the door with his powers. A particular warping-type sound and a blue glow revealed to him that at least one of his siblings was behind him. And very well, all three of them were standing there, with crossed arms and serious expressions.

"The second has come," Dawn said, glaring at him.

Nicky tilted his head back and sighed.

"Okay," He said quickly, not actually wanting this at all.

He walked over and sat down in an armchair, while the others sat down on the couch. A tense silence followed. Nicky did everything in his power to avoid eye contact as Dawn, Ricky and Dicky intensively glared at him. None of them wanted to be there, really, but the older three felt the need to clear this up, or they would barely be able to look at Nicky the same way again. But as Ricky started making things randomly invisible, and Dicky started changing his hair color, they finally started speaking.

"Okay, so are you gonna explain, or what?" Dawn said, leaning backwards in the sofa.

"What do you want me to explain?" Nicky asked, while absently staring at one of the photos above the fireplace, which suddenly seemed interesting.

"We've just got...," Ricky started awkwardly. "a few questions."

"Then start asking."

Once again, they were silent. It took a while for them to start talking again.

"For how long have you and Malou been doing ... _that_...?" Dawn asked.

"A few weeks," Nicky answered simply.

"So is that why you have been forcing us out of our room?" Dicky leaned his elbows onto his knees.

Nicky nodded stiffly. Dawn and Dicky immediately frowned while Ricky mouthed "_what_". Nicky just sighed heavily.

"Well, we're not gonna get out when you ask us to anymore," Ricky decided, more for himself than the others.

"What, so you want me and Malou to be in there with you?" Nicky said, still looking at the vases and photos above the fireplace.

"No!" All three others said in unison, even though Dawn would not be in there.

"We're saying that you need to go somewhere else," Dawn clarified, sounding awkwardly determined.

Nicky laughed under his breath to himself.

"Oh yeah, that's not happening," he shook his head.

"Then you gotta stop seeing Malou," Dawn threw her arm over the fake log armrest.

"There it is," Nicky said, sighing heavily.

He stood up to walk away, but didn't get far before his siblings interrupted him.

"There _what _is?" Ricky asked.

Nicky turned his head to them, and looked directly at them for the first time.

"You three controlling my life," a lonely tear slowly made its way down his face.

The others turned their eyebrows down.

"What?" Dicky asked, confused.

"We don't control your life," Dawn stated.

"Yes," Nicky nodded. "You do. You constantly do."

The others sat in quiet, none of them really sure what to say, or do.

"Either that or you're taking away anything special that happens to me," Nicky continued, more and more tears emerging from his eyes.

Dawn stood up from the couch, and took a few steps forward.

"What do mean, exactly?" she asked, crossing her arms again.

"I mean exactly what I just said."

"What?"

Nicky looked away, sighing quickly. He didn't answer.

"We don't do any of that!" Dawn defended herself, Ricky and Dicky, now taking the argument to a shouting level.

"Oh really?" Nicky looked back at her, his eyes now shining with water. "What happened to The Mighty Quad Squad?"

"We saved a party?" Ricky said from the couch.

"Yeah, but before that," Nicky said. "You wouldn't let me work on my own."

"Yeah, but-," Dawn started.

"_Nicky's_ _Get Schooly,_" Nicky cut her off. "You got me fired from that."

Things started happening around them. Pillows fell off the couch, the pictures frames on the pass door sill were levitating, and a couple of flower pots fell over. Nicky could feel his powers boiling inside of him, causing all these things. He didn't care though. As fast as the others tried to speak, he cut them off, reminding them of bad past times.

"Gourmet Guy," He said. "You made me quit that."

"You would've shut down the café if we-!" Dawn shouted.

"When Simone only invited me to her house!" Nicky shouted back, cutting her off. By now tears were just streaming down his face. "You ruined that too! And now you're saying I can't hang out with Malou anymore"

He was about to say something more, but he cut himself off when a stream of tears attacked him, and he looked away. Dawn raised her eyebrows, and opened her mouth.

"So we're the bad guys here!" She gestured to herself, Ricky and Dicky (who were just sitting awkwardly on the couch). "What do you mean!?"

Nicky immediately snapped back up. Things were going crazy around them. Every thing small and light enough to lift was flying a meter above the ground. Nicky was crying from fury and sadness at the same time, and he practically looked ready to kill one of the others.

"I MEAN THAT THE SECOND I HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL YOU RUIN IT!" He shouted at them. "The second I'm not just _one of the quads!_; when I'm not just the youngest quad, you take that away from me! Whatever it is! You just take it away! And I've had enough of it!"

Dawn took a few steps back in shock. All three oldest quads were just in a plain state of shock. They couldn't get any words out, and they barely breathed. The room had turned uncomfortably silent while Dawn, Ricky and Dicky looked at Nicky, unsure what to say. Nicky, in turn, looked back, tears streaming down his fiery eyes.

They had _never _seen Nicky like that. He had told them once before that he was tired of them ruining things for them. But back then they were twelve, and he just told them with a disappointed voice. Now he shouted at them. He was crying his eyes out, yelling out what he felt, uncontrollably making things around them levitate. Dawn, Ricky and Dicky were just speechless, when they realized what they had been doing for thirteen and a half years.

Nicky was sobbing out of control, still making things levitate.

The others' feeling of being mad at him a few minutes ago had completely disappeared. Now they just felt weird, and kind of sick.

"Nicky-," Dawn started, as she took a step forward.

"Just leave me alone!" Nicky shouted. He turned on his heel and ran for the staircase.

Dawn tried to stop him from running away by teleporting the first thing she saw; a book, in front of him. Just then, Nicky threw his hands in the air and down again violently. When the book disappeared from its place, a sudden wave of some kind of energy stopped it from reappearing. The blue glow from the teleportation exploded into a circle of the glow, which spread throughout the room. It passed each quad, and then faded out into the air at the same time as all the levitating things fell to the floor. But as it went through them, a weird bubbly feeling filled them. Like something was going on inside of them.

The feeling brief, and disappeared quickly. Then Nicky ran up the stairs, away from the others, despite them shouting for him to come back down. Like he said earlier, he'd gotten enough of it; of _them_. At the moment, he didn't want to see them, or hear their voices. He needed time to be alone. If they couldn't respect that right now he didn't know what he would do with himself, or them...

Wiping the fury tears off his face, he walked into the boys room, and waved his arm back behind him to slam the door, as he had done many times.

But this time, the door didn't slam...

* * *

**Wow, this was interesting to write. Looking back at all these things Nicky mentioned, I feel bad for him. But of course I gotta admit that he also did things wrong. **

**Both Nicky and the others have done things very wrong, but also have good points with them. I can't take sides between the characters, but in this argument, I'm with Nicky.**


	3. Power Failures

**Review Response**

_**HollyHook**_** \- (To both your reviews for this story) It was kind of Nicky-centric in the beginning. But it will have centric points around all the quads, and moments where I write normally about all of them. This chapter will be centered around all of them individually.  
I felt bad for Nicky while writing chapter 2! But I'm glad you like this story. Thanks for your reviews!**

* * *

Nicky tried over and over again to close the door. He did the usual swing of his arm to slam it, but the door didn't move an inch. Hand flicks didn't work either, and neither did staring and focusing really hard.

He gave up on the door after a while, and instead ran over to his bed. There was one thing left that _had _to work. The very first thing he used to practice his powers on when he was little. A stuffed cat toy. He took it out of the shelf in his nightstand, and ran over and placed it on Ricky's desk.

Back when he was five, that was the first thing he managed to lift with his mind. He went back to that moment for a while, and moved his right hand up, and held it at a point about half a meter from his face. As he tilted his head forward slightly, while keeping his eyes on the cat, he began thinking about it lifting, and levitating above the desk. Eight years ago, the toy started levitating after a few seconds. Now, it didn't even budge. All that happened was that its paw slid down from an unsteady position. But that was just the forces of gravity.

As Nicky put in more and more strength to lift the cat toy, his hand started shaking, and soon a stinging pain hit his head. But he didn't give up there, and soon it felt as if something was inside his head, pounding to get out. Only as his arm started aching, and drops of sweat were rolling down his face did he stop. The cat still hadn't flown. It hadn't slid around on the desk, or even just flinched a little.

Nicky was sweating like crazy, the pounding headache was still there, and he felt as if he was about to pass out from exhaustion. He walked over to his bed, and let himself fall onto it. He didn't know what to do. Why couldn't he lift a simple thing as a stuffed cat toy anymore? And why was an easy task such as slamming a door impossible all of a sudden. He could only come to one conclusion.

His powers were gone. Somehow they had disappeared.

He just felt empty. Literally empty. Something was missing. Ever since he was five, his powers had been something he had taken for granted. He didn't even know a life without them. A life without just nodding his head, or flicking his hand to make something happen. A _normal _life.

It was sickening. Without really wanting to do it, Nicky went over all the things he _wouldn't _be able to do now, and all of a sudden it just felt even worse. He rolled over on his side. All he wanted to do right now was fall asleep, and wake up to find that it was all just a nightmare. That there had been no argument, and that his powers were still there.

A couple of tears rolled down his nose, and landed on the pillow. Soon two tears were more tears, and slowly but surely, Nicky quietly cried himself to sleep.

* * *

Wind the clock back to when Nicky first left the living room, and ran up the stairs, leaving Dawn, Ricky and Dicky on the couch in the back of the living room.

"Nicky!" Dawn shouted after him as he ran up the stairs.

"Come back!" Ricky shouted.

"We're sorry, dude!" Dicky twisted his body over to look at the stairs.

None of their attempts worked out, and Nicky disappeared into the hallway. They leaned back on the couch, taking a quick breather after everything that had just happened. They had just forced out a new side of Nicky, which they weren't sure how to feel about. The one thing they could all agree on in the moment, was that they felt bad for him. _Really _bad.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Ricky breathed out.

He got up from the couch and ran up the stairs. Dicky and Dawn stayed on the couch for a while, still just breathing and contemplating everything. Dawn had a pretty soaring headache from whatever had happened when she tried to teleport that book in front of Nicky. She didn't know what that wave of blue glow energy was, but it had certainly done something to her.

"I'm gonna go lie down," she decided out loud, to let Dicky know where she was going.

Carefully placing a hand on her head, she sprinted over to the base of the staircase, and went to teleport up. The strange thing was that she didn't move. She stayed put at the bottom. When a task as simple as teleporting a few meters up a staircase didn't work, Dawn's headache only got worse.

Confused to why it wasn't working, Dawn ran up the stairs. She speed walked to her room, and tried to teleport in. To her confusion and fear, she stayed put outside, next to the wall. Why wasn't her teleportation working all of a sudden? Putting as much energy into it as she could with the headache, Dawn made another try at teleporting into her room.

No blue glow appeared, and her head just hurt even more. She could barely remember the last time teleporting was this hard. Must have been back when she first discovered her powers, when she was like four. But that was nine years ago! And now she teleported through walls _at least _ten times a day. It was a piece of cake, but now it was as exhausting as pushing the couch while all three boys reclined on it.

Dawn _walked _through the doorway to her room, and sat down on her bed. It had been around four months since she last actually entered a room like a normal person. Now she could almost feel her life wither away in front of her, as she realized that her powers were gone.

With barely any hope for it to work, she focused on one of the stuffed animals in her window, trying to teleport it. It remained in its place on top of a couple of other plushie toys, and Dawn threw herself onto her back on the bed.

Her powers were gone, and she didn't know what to do.

* * *

Ricky threw a towel onto himself after he stepped out of the shower. After witnessing that argument, he needed some time to just think and breathe. He felt uneasy the whole time though, so it wasn't much of a break.

He couldn't stop thinking about what Nicky said. It was true. They had held him back from everything he got to himself, except for his cooking, but that was kind of just because it benefited them. Although he hated to admit it, they had been awful to him in the past, and a few minutes ago.

Ricky brushed it off by reminding himself that Nicky had of course also done them wrong several times. He got his clothes back on, and walked out into the hall. Noise from the boys bedroom revealed someone was still in there. The uneasy feeling led Ricky to walk down into the living room instead of not letting Nicky be alone after the argument.

Dicky and Dawn weren't there anymore, meaning they had went somewhere while Ricky was in the shower. Ricky guessed Dawn was in her room, and Dicky... well, he was somewhere.

He sat down on the couch, not caring about keeping a good posture at the moment. All he wanted to do right now was forget about what just happened twenty minutes earlier. He started forcing out some thoughts that were as far away from the other quads and arguments as possible. He ended up just thinking about the fact that they were flying to California to go to Disney world in a month. It did involve the others, but he kept those thought away by just focusing on the rides there. He didn't want to go on any of them.

A car pulled up outside. A few seconds later Ricky could hear the muffled voices of Tom and Anne. They walked closer and closer to the house, discussing something Ricky couldn't fully make out.

The door opened, and in they walked.

"Oh! Hi Ricky!" Anne said when she spotted Ricky on the couch. She then went right back to her full grocery bags.

"Hey," Ricky sighed.

Anne immediately snapped her head back to him

"What's wrong, honey?"

"Nothing."

"Well, that's good," Tom said, picking the bags of food up again to carry them to the kitchen.

"No, no, no Tom. Something's wrong," Anne said while intensively shaking her head.

She carefully sprinted over to the couch and sat down next to her son.

"Ricky. Tell me."

"Nothing is wrong. At least nothing I want to _talk _about."

Anne bit her lip and looked up. Her glance went right through the pass door, and she spotted the mess in the kitchen.

"Ricky, could you clean that up for a while?" She pointed towards it, and Ricky looked over there.

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "Even though _you should _clean that up if you want it to be gone so bad."

He quickly put his focus on the pile of dirty dishes and empty milk and yogurt cartons, expecting them to fade out into the air in less than a second. But they didn't. They remained as visible as ever.

Tom and Anne entered the kitchen, and to their surprise, the mess was still messy. Giggling, Anne looked out the pass door, and leaned her arms on the sill.

"You're not doing it now?"

"He's just trying to force us to clean," Tom stated. "We've asked him to do that too many times," he chuckled. "Right Rick?"

Ricky had barely heard anything of what they just said. He was too busy going over any type of reason to why he couldn't make the mess invisible.

"Uh... yeah," he nodded, mostly to convince himself that was the reason.

He just didn't really want it to be invisible, as his parents had to learn to clean up instead of forcing their oldest son to make it fade into thin air for a couple hours.

"You should clean it up yourselves."

Not wanting further conversation about it, Ricky stood up and left the living room by the stairs. He wasn't sure what just happened, but the one thing that was clear was; he couldn't use his powers.

* * *

About five minutes had passed since the argument. Nicky had stormed up the stairs. The lack of the noise of a door slamming made Dicky confused as that was always what Nicky did when he was mad. To further confusion, Dawn actually _used the stairs _to get to the second floor. That was of course after Ricky went to take a shower, so the rainy noise of running shower water could be heard from upstairs.

Dicky sat alone on the couch for a few more minutes, and when he had been sitting up there for about fifteen minutes, he finally decided to leave like the others.

The shower was still going, and there was noise from inside Dawn's room. So without giving it furhter thought, Dicky went into the boys room, which was at the moment the only quiet room.

When he got inside he found saw Nicky on the bed in the corner. Dicky came to the conclusion that he was asleep, since he wasn't moving... or yelling at him to get out. A wet stain on the pillow revealed Nicky had been crying right before he fell asleep. Dicky got a weird feeling in his stomach, but he chose to ignore it, and just sit down on his bed instead.

He averted his eyes from Nicky, and instead landed them on the mirror on top of his dresser. The boy in the reflection immediately turned his eyebrows down, as Dicky did as well. He got off his bed and was standing by the mirror in just a second.

Why was his hair the normal brown color? Wasn't this his day to try out platinum blonde?

He went over the course of the day in a couple seconds, and quickly remembered that this was definitely platinum blonde day, as Dawn had told him how stupid he looked in it.

His hand automatically flew up to his hair, and he brushed through it a few times. When he tried to color it back to blonde, it didn't work. It kept to the brown color. Only one word struck across his mind.

_Why? _

It made no sense! Coloring his hair was so easy. He'd been doing it since he was five! He had even come to the point in his powers where his hair color changed automatically with his emotions.

The only thing that came to his mind was asking someone if he was hallucinating. There was no clear reason to _why _he would be hallucinating, but it was the only logical reason he could come up with.

He bolted out the door, a second later hoping the sudden noise didn't wake Nicky up. More carefully this time, he opened the door to Dawn's room.

"Have you seen the sign?" she said before even seeing him in the doorway. "No boys allowed."

Something was weird about her voice. It was shaky in a way.

"I just need to ask you something," Dicky clarified as he stepped in. "Is my hair brown."

Dawn tilted her head forward. She was laying on the bed, and Dicky could swear she looked pretty flustered.

"Yeah," she said, no emotion in her voice. "Good thing you got rid of that blonde."

"I didn't," Dicky said.

Dawn immediately sat right up. Her eyebrows were turned down, and her flustered expression had turned to confusion.

"What do you mean you didn't?"

"I mean, _I didn't_. Are you listening?" Dicky responded.

Dawn rolled her eyes.

"So can you change it back to blonde?" she said, changing the subject slightly.

Dicky turned his eyebrows down.

"I thought you didn't want the blonde," he said confusedly.

"I don't!" Dawn snapped. "I'm asking you if you can use your powers."

"Oh," Dicky said plainly. "Then no."

"Hah," Dawn breathed out.

She sighed loudly as she looked back up at Dicky.

"I can't either," she said. "They're gone."

"What?" Dicky was now confused again.

"I can't teleport," Dawn pronounced every word very clearly. "And you can't shape shift."

"And what does that mean?" Dicky asked.

Dawn shrugged, and they were quiet for a while, just taking in the fact. Dicky now knew that he wasn't hallucinating, and Dawn knew she wasn't alone with having no powers.

"Do you think Nicky and Ricky have their powers?" Dicky said after a while.

"I have no idea," Dawn answered. "I have no idea!"

She threw herself backwards into a laying position again.

"I have no idea what's going on! Today's just been so freaking messed up! Nicky's made out with someone, then he _yells _at us, and now we can't use our powers for some weird reas-"

"Dawn," Dicky interrupted her in the middle of her upset rambling.

"What!?"

She looked up at Dicky, who looked pretty horrified. He slowly raised a finger to point at her hair. When Dawn turned her head to look at the hair under herself, she understood his expression.

Her hair was slowly but surely turning red.

* * *

**This chapter was pretty long! But you know what, I love long chapters! They're my favorite to write and read, so what could go wrong?**

**I just checked, and this is the most words I have ever written in one document. 2740 words if anyone's wondering.**

**March 20th update: This is not a long chapter at all. Now this is my normal length of a chapter. This chapter now has the eleventh most words. First is the ASOUE version of _Happy_ with 6 321 words. **


	4. The Switch

**Review Response**

_**HollyHook **_**\- Indeed. What is happening!? You're gonna find out very soon what is going on with their powers.**

**Now to the chapter!**

* * *

"What's happening!?" Dawn flung out of bed.

She constantly looked side to side at her hair, which was still going red. It didn't go so well though, as her hair flew around with her head.

"I don't know!" Dicky took a few steps back. "How are you doing that?"

"I'm not!"

Dawn stopped swinging her head side to side, and stopped to just look at Dicky with rapidly blinking eyes. Her chest was puffing up and down as she breathed.

"I thought I was the shapeshifter," Dicky snorted.

And at once, Dawn stopped her intense blinking and heavy breathing. She looked Dicky directly in his eyes.

"You think that's what happened?"

"What's _that_?" Dicky furrowed his eyebrows.

"What you just said."

"_What's that_?"

"No, before that."

"I'm the shapeshifter."

Dawn snapped her finger in front of him and nodded with a proud smile. Dicky's brows were still pushed together, and he looked at her weirdly.

"...I'm confused."

Dawn rolled her eyes.

"I think _I _have _your _power," she enunciated, pointing to herself and Dicky while explaining.

It didn't help at all, as Dicky still looked like someone had just told him Squishy had turned into an elephant.

"How?" he asked after a while.

Dawn simply shrugged, before grabbing his shirt sleeve, and dragging him out of the room. By now her hair was going back to its original dark blonde. Right when they got out of the room, they ran into the very person Dawn was going to go talk to.

"Ricky!"

Ricky had just reached the top of the stairs, and stopped when Dawn said his name.

"What?" he said, a bit shut-offish.

"Can you use your powers?" Dawn asked, and Ricky's face immediately changed.

"No, actually... I can't."

His eyebrows raised as he took a few steps closer to them.

"Hah. We can't either," Dicky revealed, chuckling lightly.

"Should we check if Nicky can?" Dawn nodded to the boys room door.

"He's sleeping," Dicky quickly commented.

"Then we wake him up," Ricky said, as if it was the most obvious thing.

The two older quads walked into the boys room, with Dicky close behind them. Without any type of hesitation they walked over to Nicky's corner, and Dawn shook him awake.

"What?" Was the first thing Nicky groaned.

He didn't even move a muscle to face them because he was so annoyed. Partly because of the argument, and partly because they just woke him up.

"We have a question," Ricky announced.

"_What_?" Nicky repeated, giving off clear signs he didn't want anything to do with them right now.

"Can you use your powers?" Dawn asked.

At once, Nicky rolled over and sat up.

"What did you say?" he asked, wanting clearance to if he had heard it right.

"Can you use your powers?" Dawn repeated, pronouncing each word clearly.

Nicky slowly shook his head, concerned wrinkles appearing between his eyebrows.

"None of us can either," Ricky gestured to himself, Dicky and Dawn.

"But I think _I _have Dicky's power," Dawn revealed.

"What?" Nicky and Ricky asked in unison.

"Yeah," Dawn nodded intensively before turning her head to Dicky. "Dicky, how do you change your hair color?"

"I...," Dicky started thinking. To him it was just an obvious thing he could do. "I... juuuuuust... think about what color I want, and put some energy into changing it."

Dawn continued her nodding, as she closed her eyes. A few seconds passed by in silence, before a light lilac color started spreading from the roots of her hair. The boys watched in shock and astonishment all the way until the color reached the tip of her hair. Dawn opened her eyes, and looked down at her purple hair.

"Oh my gosh!" She gasped. "I do have your power!"

She was unsure whether to think it was super cool, or super freaky.

"Do you think we've switched powers somehow?" Ricky suggested, not taking his eyes off Dawn's hair.

"Probably," Dawn answered, also inspecting her hair. "We gotta test it."

"How do you teleport?" Nicky asked.

By now he had pretty much forgotten that he was annoyed. He was just interested in what just happened. Not sure if the interest was good or bad though.

"I like... It's like...," Just like Dicky, Dawn had a hard time _explaining _how she did it. "It's like taking a step. Except that instead of landing where your foot would end up, you appear somewhere else. Wherever you think of, within reason of course. And you gotta put some energy into it. I guess that's like a default super powers thing."

All three boys immediately started taking distinct steps around in the room. Dawn watched them walk around, looking like quite big fools, much to her entertainment. She couldn't contain her chuckles.

It took them a minute, but after a while, Ricky disappeared with the blue transparent glow, and a few seconds later, he walked in through the door again, with an uncertain smile on his face.

"So you're the teleporter," Dawn said, not as amused now that she saw someone else having her beloved power.

"Then they're left with telekinesis and invisibility," Ricky gestured to Dicky and Nicky.

It was pretty obvious who had what, but just to be completely sure, they tested it.

"I just imagine whatever I want to happen, happening," Nicky explained.

"It's pretty much the same for me, except I imagine it disappearing," Ricky told them.

"Use these," Dawn held up two books, without even asking if it was okay for them to test their powers on them.

Even when Ricky said a mild protest to it, she placed them on his desk in front of Dicky and Nicky. As she stepped back to sit down on Ricky's bed, Dicky and Nicky started focusing on the books. After just a few seconds, Dicky's book started floating, and Nicky's disappeared. They turned around to the others, sighing.

"We've switched," Nicky stated, making it clear that everyone had switched with each other.

"But... how?" Dawn asked. "I mean.. _I_ want _my_ power"

"It has to be related to the argument," Ricky said, making Nicky look away in annoyance.

"Can we _not _talk about that?" Nicky asked, still not looking at them.

"We have to," Dawn demanded. "At least _we_ have to," she continued, gesturing to herself and Nicky.

She grabbed Nicky's arm, and dragged him along into her room, leaving Dicky and Ricky behind them. To make sure they wouldn't follow them, she closed the door. Nicky unwillingly sat down on her bed, and Dawn sat down in her desk chair.

"Okay, so what could have happened?" Dawn asked the second she was in her chair.

Nicky shrugged, while actively avoiding eye contact. Ignoring his distance from the conversation, Dawn started going over the argument.

"We were talking, you were barely listening, we said something, you snapped, you tried to leave..."

"I left," Nicky corrected.

"Yeah, but I tried to stop you with that...-," It was as if a light bulb went on in Dawn's head. "-... that book."

She snapped her fingers and stood up.

"The book! You did some weird thing with it!"

"You did too!" Nicky defended himself.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what exactly did you do with that book?"

"I tried to rip it apart."

"But I teleported it."

Dawn nodded to herself.

"I think our powers... _collided _or something."

Suddenly Nicky was interested again. He stood up and walked over to Dawn. They stopped in front of each other in the middle of her room.

"I tried to rip it apart, and you teleported it."

"There was that weird energy circle thing."

"Maybe it transported the ripping and teleporting into _us._"

"And switched our powers."

Both of them nodded, proud of themselves for figuring it out.

"Not to brag or anything, but right now I think we're way smarter than Ricky," Dawn laughed.

"Definitely," Nicky agreed. "Now how do we switch back?" he quickly changed the subject.

Dawn's face dropped.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe we need to do that again."

"But _we _can't. Ricky and Dicky have our powers," Nicky reminded her.

"Oh yeah," Dawn nodded slowly. "Then I guess they have to do it."

"They don't know how to do that."

"We'll force them to train to do it," Dawn said as if it was obvious. "I mean, shape shifting is cool, but I _can not _live without teleporting."

"Yeah. I need my telekinesis. I can't imagine actually having to _get up _to get things."

They laughed a little at their own sorrow and longing for their powers.

"Let's go break the news," Dawn said, and she and Nicky left the room.

* * *

**This chapter made me want more Dawn and Nicky moments. The show didn't have _close to _enough moments of just the two of them. There was that one episode, _Quadentity Crisis, _but that's like the only thing. **

**I want more Dawn and Nicky!**


	5. Struggles and Success'

**The last chapter was a bit sloppy, because I wasn't in the mood for writing, but I wrote anyway. Don't ask why.**

* * *

Dicky and Ricky were looking at Dawn and Nicky with extremely confused faces as the oldest and youngest quad tried to explain to them what they were supposed to do to switch their powers back. No matter how Dawn and Nicky put their words, nothing seemed to make sense in Ricky and Dicky's minds. It didn't surprise them that Dicky didn't understand, but _Ricky_? Him not getting any of what they were blabbering about made them both realize how bad they were at explaining things.

"Can you explain again?" Ricky asked, trying to get the smallest bit of sense out of Dawn and Nicky's words.

"Ummm... You have to like... teleport something, and then... _you_... have to rip it apart, while _he's_ teleporting it," Dawn tried to put everything together. "And then somehow... it's gonna switch our powers back..."

"Wait, wait, wait," Ricky slowed her down. "So you don't even know how this works?"

Dawn and Nicky exchanged a quick look.

"Uh... no, actually," Nicky said, pretty much realizing it at the moment.

"Then how do you know it will work now?" Ricky laid back on his bed, giving up hope on them.

"Please Ricky! It's the only guess we have," Dawn pleaded.

She and Nicky hadn't really thought about it at all. They came up with the theory that the strange sensation they created had switched their powers, and had then rushed to that conclusion. And now they were in there, explaining it.

"Fine," Ricky sat back up firmly, his lips pinched. "How do we do it?"

"I'm just gonna rip something apart!" Dicky stated excitedly.

"While's he's teleporting it," Nicky added, for his and the other quads' safety.

"And how do I teleport _things_?" Ricky asked.

"Just like you teleport yourself," Dawn said as if it was the most obvious thing ever (she even snorted at the question).

"I can't make books take a step," Ricky reprimanded.

Dawn's mouth opened half-way, but she stopped before saying anything. She quickly thought back to a few weeks earlier when she had begun teleporting objects, and quickly realized she barely remembered how she started out.

"Can't we take this tomorrow?" Nicky asked.

The other quads turned their heads towards him, and it looked like the tiredness, and everything else that happened earlier had finally hit him again. Dawn, Dicky and Ricky sighed in chorus, before agreeing. All the events of the last couple of hours had made hours fly by like seconds. It was actually late.

So, confused and stirred, the quads all went to bed. It took them a while to drift off, with all the pressure in mind.

* * *

Nicky was the first to wake up the next morning. He knew so immediately by the noise of Dicky snoring, and Ricky quietly mumbling sleep rhymes. Another sound also spread through the room. The jingly tone from a text. Nicky stretched out his arm and grabbed his phone. The sudden strong light almost blinded him, and he had to squint his eyes to see anything on the screen.

The four numbers spelling out the time were 08:44. Pretty late for an early bird like Nicky, but after the events of yesterday, Nicky understood why he hadn't woken up to make breakfast for himself at 7 am like normally.

Other than the time, there was the text notification on his phone. Just the contact name put a goofy smile on Nicky's face, as he knew what he had in front of him to read. He pressed the notification of a text from _Malou❤_, and was greeted by a couple of new messages.

_Why are birthday parties for people older than 18 always so boring? - _Yesterday, 10:13 pm

_What time can I come over tomorrow? Or are you coming to my place, because of that thing with your sister? - _Yesterday 11:57 pm

The dreadful thought hit Nicky with the last text, and he reluctantly forced himself to kick off the blanket, and walk out into the corridor. Very unusually, he actually had to _touch _the door to open and close it. It left a strange feeling in his hand as he let go of the doorknob. He couldn't even shake off the weird feeling that he couldn't use his powers. He was even about to open it initially, but stopped when the door started fading out of the air.

When out in the hallway, Nicky pressed the contact picture for Malou, and went on to call her. While waiting for the few beeps to pass, he took several deep breaths.

"_Hello?"_

In the span of one second after Malou answered, Nicky's entire plan on what to say flew out of his head.

"Uuuh.. Hey Mal"

"_Hey Nicky! What're you doing?"_

"Calling you"

He heard Malou giggle over the phone, and it put a smile on his face.

"_So why are you calling_?"

The smile disappeared as his mind went back to why he called in the first place.

"Well... I have some bad news."

It was almost like he could see Malou's smile drop in front of him as he burst the bubble.

"I can't see you today"

"_Why? Is it about yesterday._"

Nicky nodded, and voiced it to confirm the answer.

"It's not anything about you, it's just... Yesterday when Dawn teleported in on us, the _last _thing I wanted to do was talk about it. But guess what they forced me to do..."

"_That's horrible._"

"I know."

For a second, Nicky considered telling Malou about what happened, but decided against it.

"I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I promise, as soon as it's it's fixed, we'll se each other."

"_Sounds good,"_ Malou giggled.

"Bye Mal."

"_Bye Nicky._"

Nicky moved the phone from his ear, and hung up. He sighed heavily, before returning into the boys room. In there, Dicky had woken up, and was now lying in his bed with his phone. When the door opened, he turned his head. He gave Nicky his casual good-morning look, and Nicky answered it with a pinched smile. All Nicky managed to do was sit down on his bed, before Dawn flung the door open.

She stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. Her eyes were literally red, eyebrows were furrowed, and her hair was bright red, and only reached her shoulders.

"We need to start training," she said quickly. Only by the tone of her voice the boys knew that this wasn't a point to argue about. "Now."

The boys just looked at her, confused, and a little afraid of her current mood.

"I can't. Live. Like this!" Dawn continued, leaning against the doorway.

"Is something wrong?" Nicky asked.

Dawn stood straight up again, and gave Nicky an annoyed are-you-serious look.

"Yeah! I woke up like _THIS_!" Dawn held a bit of her red shoulder-length hair. "Dicky, how do I undo this?!"

"You're way too tense," Dicky answered, slowly getting further away from her.

"Then what do I do!?"

"Just chill."

"What?!"

"He said chill," Ricky said drowsily. It appeared that Dawn's loud complaining had woken him up.

"Ugh! I hate this power!" Dawn flopped her arms down furiously.

"Well... that hairstyle isn't too bad," Nicky said, trying his best to lighten Dawn's mood. "It looks kinda good," the last phrase was more of a question than a statement...

Dawn responded to Nicky's failed compliment with a frown. She mumbled something to herself, something in the style of "_Shapeshifting is the worst_", but all three boys could definitely make out a curse word in Dawn's statement.

* * *

A few hours later the quads were gathered in the living room. Ricky was failing at teleporting a few books Dawn had laid out on the coffee table, while Dicky practiced lifting objects. Dawn was leaning onto the pass door sill, trying to negotiate Anne into letting them try their power switch on a random book she found. Anne was having none of it, after finding out the object they would use would probably never be seen again. Meanwhile Nicky was just laying on the couch with Squishy on his belly.

"Please mom, we need something useless to teleport!" Dawn begged after Anne denied her for a fifth time.

"_Useless_?!" Anne asked, offended. "This book isn't useless, I got it from my grandfather."

"But the first part of the trilogy is already gone!" Dawn argued.

Anne's jaw dropped, and Dawn remembered first then that she hadn't told Anne that they teleported the first part out of Anne's book trilogy out of existence.

"It's gone!?"

"We can just buy a new one."

"This trilogy is from the 90's, Dawn. We're not gonna find it anywhere."

Dawn pushed her lips together firmly, and looked away. Then she remembered something else important that she had to ask for. It definitely wasn't the right time, but it was probably the only time if they wanted their powers back.

"Mom?"

Anne looked over at Dawn, and sighed.

"We need something to practice on."

Anne raised her eyebrows as a way to ask what they needed.

"Something that Dicky can practice ripping apart...," Dawn asked, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

"Oh, _that's_ it!" Anne pulled the pass door slides together, closing herself in the kitchen.

"Guys we're using this book," Dawn turned around and let herself fall backwards into the arm chair. She turned her head to Nicky, and frowned when she noticed he was just laying there on the couch. "Hey, are you gonna help with anything?"

Nicky turned to look at her as he answered.

"I'm keeping Squishy busy. I think that's helping enough."

"Get us something to eat or something," Dawn ordered. "This is starving me."

Nicky gave a very pronounced sigh before lifting his hand, and directing it towards the kitchen door. Of course, nothing happened. When Nicky remembered he couldn't use his powers right now, he lifted Squishy off himself and swung himself off the couch.

"Opening doors is exhausting!" He complained as he opened the kitchen door and walked in.

"I know right!" Dawn flopped herself over onto her stomach.

Nicky returned to the doorway.

"Yeah!" He nodded vigorously. "It's much more simple to just swing it open with your mind"

"Or just teleport into a room," Dawn added.

"Well, not when you teleport into the bathroom while someone's using it," Nicky mumbled.

"Just get the food already!" Ricky shouted.

Nicky rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen.

"What's up with you?" Dawn asked, turning her eyebrows down at Ricky.

"This won't work!" Ricky stared at the books on the coffee table with fire in his eyes.

"It took me ten years to figure out I could teleport objects, and four months to perfect it. You think _you _can get it in a few hours?"

"Well... No!" Ricky let his outstretched arm fall down.

At the totally wrong time, Dicky snorted. Ricky turned on his heel and gave him a dirty look.

"What!?"

"Telekinesis is easy," Dicky chuckled as he made one of the books hover from side to side.

"You've not made _yourself_ hover," Nicky commented as he came back into the living room with some mini chocolate muffins Anne bought at the store the day prior.

"How hard can it be?" Dicky asked, unbeknownst to him that he was severely overestimating himself.

Nicky put the muffin tray down next to the book.

"Really hard," he stated.

Dicky began laughing again.

"Oh yeah. Like that time you did it, but almost-"

"Shut up," Nicky cut him off, and looked down at the muffins. He was not letting Ricky or Dawn know what Dicky almost said.

Ricky sighed at them, and lead them back on track.

"Well, this _thing _we gotta do won't work without teleportation."

"Then just get it right," Dicky demanded.

Ricky took a deep breath to keep himself from attacking Dicky.

"Invisibility is so much more simple than this," he mumbled to himself, now calmly.

"Yeah, it's actually pretty cool," Nicky said, a smile adorning his face.

When his siblings' attention was all on him, he held his hand up to the coffee table, and slowly but surely, it faded away. All the books, and the tray of muffins fell to the floor. He turned to his siblings, and shrugged.

"Well, that was unnecessary," Dawn commented and picked up a muffin off the floor.

* * *

**This is just a random little chapter I threw together for some reason. I didn't know what to write, so I just let my fingers flow over the keyboard, and write words. This is what I got, and I really like it actually. **

**You may be wondering why I've been taking such a long time to upload this chapter. I have a really good reason for it, and I think you'll like it a lot as well. **

**For the last couple of weeks I've been working on a _reallllly long _oneshot for _Lights Off, Door Closed_. It's inspired by some Creepypasta's I've read, and it has a kind of Creepypasta vibe. I've gotten chills so many times while writing it, and I don't know how many times I've looked over my shoulder. **

**Hope you're ready for it!**

_**Happy**_** \- Coming out some time next week.**

**I just made this sound like a commercial, hehehe**


	6. Switch, Pretend

**I am so incredibly sorry; I am sorry beyond words that it took me ****_seven - fricking - months _****to update this story. I cannot believe myself for doing that to everyone who likes this story. But now I am here because it's my one year anniversary of writing stories here!**

**Even though you left these reviews seven months ago, I wanna do ****Review Responses****.**

_**HollyHook - **_**Ironic that you wrote "glad you're back" then I disappeared for half a year... Sorry, self irony. I'm still sorry that happened. You also talked about the long LODC oneshot, and I saw that you now (of course) have read it.**

_**VeronicaWeasley -**_** You asked if the parents were never around for plot reasons, and my answer to that is; ****_of course that's the reason_****! I'm too lazy to put hard work into figuring out how to incorporate the parents in this story. I put more of that into my FictionPress stories. Of course I still want quality here, but the easy way out is just to say; Tom and Anne are at work. Rambling over.**

**Veronica also asked about the pronunciation of Malou's name. Of course I've already answered her in a PM, but if anyone else is wondering that same question, here's how you pronounce it.**

_**Mah-lou.**_

**You may have read it as ****_May-lou_****, which is wrong. Malou is a Scandinavian name which I just had to use in one of my stories.**

**Now, let's get to chapter six after seven months' absence!**

* * *

Ricky focused hard on the book he was supposed to practice teleporting on. He was supposed to teleport it to the other side of the room, but the furthest he had gotten was the blue light. It had appeared multiple times along the edges of the book, but he always had to stop to gasp for breath and wipe sweat off his forehead.

Dawn found it all very annoying, and spent her time yelling at him to get it right.

For Dicky, Dawn had come up with the genius solution to use blank papers as a practice thing for him to rip apart. At the moment, he had ripped more than thirty papers to pieces. With every paper destroyed, he got a bit more excited.

Nicky had spent a lot of time invisible, and none of the others were really sure where exactly he had been most of the time. His brain had given him a sudden reminder of the argument, and he immediately shut himself off from the others by turning himself and everything he touched invisible. Even now, a few weeks after all the drama, was he a bit shut-offish.

"This is impossible!" Ricky yelled as he wiped a few sweat drops from his forehead with his sleeve.

"You just suck at this, that's the problem," Dawn rolled her eyes.

"You said yourself that I wouldn't master it immediately!" Ricky turned his head to Dawn with an offended face.

"Now you've had three weeks, you should understand now," Dawn stated.

"You do realize you're going against everything you said when we first switched?" Ricky asked. Now he wasn't even trying anymore.

The next second, a chocolate bar was randomly floating above their heads. Both of the oldest two quads sighed and turned their heads towards the couch by the fireplace. Dicky lay spread out over it, grinning, clearly making the chocolate float. A whole lot of their days had been like this - random items started floating over their heads. Dicky surely enjoyed his temporary telekinesis.

"Could you stop that for just one minute?" Dawn irritably asked.

Dicky answered with a shrug, and the next second, the chocolate bar dropped. Dawn picked it up and placed it in front of Ricky.

"Try teleporting that," she instructed Ricky. "Should be easy enough."

She lay back down on the big couch, and Ricky took a deep breath. He cleared his mind of annoyed thoughts about Dicky and put all of his energy on teleporting the chocolate bar. The normal happened. The blue glow appeared when Ricky started feeling a bit tired, but this time it actually started consuming the chocolate bar. Slowly but surely, the bar got smaller and the blue light grew bigger. Then, just as the bar was about to disappear -

"Guys!"

Ricky snapped out of focus; the blue glow disappeared, and the chocolate bar remained in place on the coffee table.

"Nicky!" Dawn spat.

Nicky turned visible on the staircase platform. In his hand was his phone, and he wore a lightly terrified face.

"What do you want!?" Dawn bellowed, angry that Nicky had stopped this _right_ at the moment when Ricky was about to get it right.

"I just got a reminder on my phone...," Nicky breathed. "about the TV crew that's coming today to make a segment on our powers."

He held his phone up so the other quads could see it. Dawn and Ricky walked closer to the stairs, and Dicky got out of the couch. Very well, on Nicky's phone there was a notification from a reminder which read '_power segment on TV_'. Only a couple of days before they accidentally switched had they scheduled that.

"What do we do about this?" Nicky asked.

"I don't know," Dawn shrugged, staring off into space. In her mind, she was telling herself that this was not actually happening.

Their anxiety for this news segment would not be understandable without mentioning a small detail; they had told no one but Tom and Anne about the switch (Nicky had also, unbeknownst to the others, told Malou).

"We have to cancel," Ricky stated.

"Are you crazy?" Dawn stared at him.

"We've been waiting for this for weeks, dude," Dicky said.

"We've forgotten about it for weeks, you mean," Dawn corrected.

"Don't you think it's a little late to cancel?" Nicky asked. He looked down at his phone. "I mean, they're coming in like an hour."

"Then we have to do something else," Ricky said. It was pretty much their only choice.

"I think I got an idea," Dicky said.

The others quickly directed some low-expecting glances at Dicky.

"What if Dawn acts like she's going to teleport something, but Ricky does it for her, so it looks like Dawn's teleporting it," Dicky said.

Nicky, Ricky and Dawn's faces changed in an instant. They raised their eyebrows and their mouths opened a couple of inches.

"That's... that's actually a good idea, Dicky," Ricky said.

"I know," Dicky grinned.

"Let's try it out," Dawn turned around and walked to the couch. "Let's say I'm gonna teleport this chocolate bar."

She put the chocolate bar from earlier on the couch armrest and held her hand up towards it.

"Teleport it, Ricky," she instructed.

Ricky quickly held his arm and hand up in the same manner as Dawn, only that he actually tried to use the powers he currently possessed. Just like he had done earlier, he focused as hard as he could, and put all the energy he had in his body into teleporting the chocolate. After a moment, the glow appeared. Sweat drops were already rolling down Ricky's face, but he didn't stop trying. He had come so close earlier, this time was it. Then it happened. The chocolate bar got completely consumed by the glow. Ricky immediately fell back onto the couch, breathing heavily.

"That...," he panted. "was... exhausting."

"You'll have to do it again soon," Dawn reminded him. Ricky responded to this by making a miserable face.

"That's not the only problem," Nicky suddenly said.

The others turned their heads towards him. He was pointing at Dicky.

"We can all use our powers on objects. He can't," Nicky said.

It was true. Dawn could teleport objects, Ricky could make them invisible and Nicky could control them. Dicky could only alter his own appearance.

"Weeeee...," Dawn started speaking, but obviously got nowhere. "We'll figure that out later. We've gotta get ready now. We're not doing TV in our pajamas."

"Definitely not," Dicky agreed.

The quads ran up the stairs.

* * *

_Ding dong ding dong, dong ding ding dong, _the doorbell rang.

Feeling a bit anxious, the quads went to open the door. When Dicky did so with his mind (while Nicky pretended to be the one to do it), a woman with an exaggerated smile stood right outside, holding a microphone. Behind her were a few of her coworkers. One held a light device, some held cameras, and one had nothing in his hands; only a bag hanging over his shoulder. The quads presumed he brought a few things for styling, even though he didn't need that.

"Elsa Godwin, channel three reports," the woman reporter up front said.

The cameras were obviously already rolling. The quads made sure to put on smiles.

"Today, we're here to meet the famous-in-town Harper Quadruplets!" Elsa continued.

She walked in, and the crew followed her.

"Here we have them! Hello quads, I'm Elsa Godwin."

"Hey! I'm Dawn."

"I'm Ricky."

"Dicky."

"I'm Nicky."

Elsa turned right away from the conversation and back to the camera.

"Today you'll be seeing a bunch of fun things, including these extraordinary humans demonstrating their powers. Let's get into that."

The cameras were turned off. Right then, Elsa turned off her TV manner, and went back to being a normal human.

"Hi Harpers," she calmly said.

"Hey Elsa," Ricky greeted her again.

The quads had actually met Elsa Godwin multiple times before for TV things. The introductions were just a recurring thing that had to happen in the beginning of a segment.

"Do you have anything special to say for today's report?" Elsa asked.

Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn exchanged a glance. Then they shook their heads.

"No," Dawn said.

"Okay, good. You're just going to demonstrate the new things you've learned to do with your powers, alright?" Elsa gave two small thumbs up. The Harpers responded by giving her the same action. "Let's roll," Elsa's TV grin was back on her face.

The camera men fixed their gear for a minute, before they started the recording again. The Harpers put up their proper postures and faces.

"Over the course of the last few months, the Harper quadruplets Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn have developed their magical powers even more. Last time we checked in on them was a couple of months ago. What had you accomplished back then?" Elsa read of the prepared script.

She held the microphone up to Dawn.

"Two months after our exposure, I had just learned to have some control over my teleporting of solid objects, such as pillows," Dawn explained in a very tell-story manner.

"I had just managed to make _objects_ invisible to everyone," Ricky said when he got the mic.

"I had gotten better control of my shape changing," Dicky told in a too proper way.

"I could levitate a couple inches off the ground for a couple of seconds," Nicky said, nodding.

Elsa took the microphone back to herself.

"That was two months ago, and two months after the quads let the world know of their powers," she said. "Now quads, how have your powers developed further since we last met?"

Dawn took the mic again.

"I'm pretty much in full control of my object teleportation, but liquids and things with many small pieces are still pretty hard," she told the camera.

"I can now make things invisible for only certain people of my choice," Ricky explained.

"I've learned to change my size," Dicky grinned.

"I can levitate higher and longer," Nicky said.

"Those all sound like incredible things," Elsa said, and even she felt that part of the script was a bit exaggerated. "Would you like to demonstrate them for us?"

The quads looked at each other, all waiting for one another to speak.

"Yeah, sure... I will," Dawn stepped forward.

When she turned her back to the camera to pretend-teleport a book, she rolled her eyes at her brothers' cowardice. She held her hand out at the same time as Ricky discreetly stepped in behind Dicky and Nicky.

"So I don't block the shot," he whispered to the camera man.

Then he held his hand up just like Dawn, and he started to focus on the book disappearing. Dawn stood by the coffee table, anticipating the teleportation. It really was all or nothing. She wished Ricky would nail it, for all the quads' sake. To hers and the others' relief, the book started getting consumed by the glow. Just like the chocolate bar had done earlier, it soon disappeared. Dawn turned back to Elsa and the camera with a wide smile on her face.

"There you have it," she said, a hint of nervousness to her voice, which she hoped the crew had not noticed.

"Wonderful, Dawn!" Elsa clapped. "Ricky? Could you show your development?"

"Uuuuuh, yeah," Ricky hesitantly stepped forward. He still was a bit sweaty from all the energy he put into teleporting the book.

Nicky needed not to hide somewhere, as he could make things invisible without holding a hand out, so he just walked backward and sat down on the staircase. As Ricky chose a forgotten snack bowl to make invisible, Nicky focused his eyes on it. Ricky often made things invisible right in his hand, so he held the bowl up as if it was a mighty prize. He used his free hand to pretend to use his power. Meanwhile Nicky was the one who really was focusing and putting in energy.

The bowl faded into air. Ricky held his now empty hand up with a grin on his face. Elsa and some of the other crew members gasped for a dramatic effect on TV.

"Incredible, Ricky," Elsa congratulated. Just as Ricky was about to sit down on the couch, she added something else. "Could you make the bowl invisible for _only_ the camera?"

That was something Ricky would normally be able to do, and it would be something he would call a piece of cake. Now however, it was way more than a piece of cake. Ricky turned his head to Nicky on the staircase. Nicky was trying his best not to show the horror on his face.

"I haven't learned to do that," he hissed very quietly. Not even Ricky heard it.

"I'm...," Ricky began. He turned to the TV crew. "I'm a bit tired... so maybe that could wait 'til the next segment we're on?"

"Okay... very well," Elsa said, a bit disappointed. "Then maybe... Nicky, could you go next."

Nicky nodded. He pinched a smile as he stood up. Now it was Dicky's turn to actually be the one in action. The thing that caused a problem was that he needed to hold his hand up for his telekinesis to work.

"I have to go to the bathroom," he announced very awkwardly.

He had a plan for how he was going to execute this. There was no way he could not admit to himself that he was proud he had come up with two good plans this day. As the TV crew watched him, he left the room through the kitchen door. When he heard voices on the other side, he opened the pass door the tiniest bit, just so he could see inside the living room.

The flaw in his plan was the fact that he had not told Nicky about this, so his younger brother thought he would have to wait for a few minutes to demonstrate his power, that he was not currently in control of.

"Should we... wait for Dicky?" he asked with a nervous chuckle.

"Why should we?" Elsa asked. "I bet he sees this daily."

"Yeah, he does, but it's just... shouldn't all the quads be here for the segment?" Nicky asked.

Just as he finished the sentence, a magazine on the coffee table started levitating. Luckily, this was not unnoticed by him, and he quickly threw his hand out to make it look like he was doing it.

"Nevermind!" he said. "Why should all of us be here anyway?"

Everyone noticed that something was off, but no one cared to mention or question it.

"Didn't you say you could make yourself levitate?" Elsa furrowed her eyebrows.

"Yes!" Nicky nodded. "Yes I can... Just maybe not right now?"

Elsa frowned a bit.

"Why not?"

"I'm also a bit tired," Nicky copied Ricky's excuse. "Got up early to make breakfast. I don't have a lot of energy left."

Elsa sighed, but nodded. She turned back to the camera.

"There you have it, people," she said as if talking to a big audience. "An update on the powers of the Harper quadruplets! Tune in on channel three reports for more fun segments! Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays with Elsa Godwin. Thanks for watching!"


	7. The Try

**I'm having a bit of a dilemma currently. I don't know whether to focus on finishing my stories one at a time, or if I should post randomly for each one. Please help.**

**Review Responses!**

_**HollyHook - **_**It still felt best to say sorry. Yay, you're back (hopefully)! Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. As you may have noticed from this short while without updates, I didn't need a lot of time (thankfully). Thanks again, nice to know I won't be abandoned. You won't be either!**

_**VeronicaWeasley -**_** I also forgot what was happening, but then I went back and read chapter 5, and I remembered everything again! Yay for yet another chapter coming here!**

* * *

Dawn let out a huge sigh of final relief when she closed the door behind the camera crew. The prior half hour had contained far too many close calls for each of them. Once the filming had began, their ten minutes of sloppy planning had shown to be pretty useless. This had led to bad acting, skipping Dicky's powers and near expulsion of their unintentional switch.

Dawn shot an angry glare at Dicky.

"_I have to go to the bathroom_?" she mimicked his statement from the segment with a tone of strong disbelief and disappointment.

"What was I supposed to say?" Dicky shrugged casually.

"Something believable!"

"Like what?"

"Not 'I have to go to the bathroom'! That's the famous lie for when you want to leave without just saying 'I'm leaving'!"

"Did it occur to you that it's the most famous because it's the one that works best?" Ricky piped up asking.

All Dawn did to answer was cast another death glare. She then turned to face them all.

"If you three do anything like that again-"

"Us three? What about you?!" Nicky said.

"Me? If you didn't notice. I didn't screw up in any way back there."

"Because you didn't have to _use_ Dicky's powers and make it look like it was him doing it," Ricky explained for her.

"But if I did, I wouldn't screw it up as much as you did," Dawn hissed.

"Your hair's turning red," Nicky pointed out to her. It was very much true. When Dawn glanced down at her shoulders, she could see her hair slowly turning a dark shade of red.

"That's anger," Dicky unnecessarily explained.

"And it's turning red on it's own accord. Not yours," Nicky continued.

"Meaning you don't have full control either, and could just as likely screw up," Ricky finished.

Dawn wanted to snap a valid argument back at them, but couldn't think of anything and remained unwillingly quiet. So did the boys. They stood by the door staring at each other. Then something shifted in Ricky's eyes. Suddenly he looked less mad and more like he had just been struck by the most amazing idea.

"Guys, we did it," he said. The way he said it they might as well just have saved the world.

"What?" Dawn was snapped out of her irritated glare.

"I teleported the book, and Dicky made that magazine levitate pretty well," Ricky said.

Nicky, Dicky and Dawn caught on. They looked up with anticipation and excitement in their eyes.

"You think we can switch back?" Nicky asked. The thought alone of getting his telekinesis back was enough to send his happiness through the roof.

Ricky nodded. "Let's use the magazine." He grabbed it off the table and held it up in front of himself, only to realize he needed to lay it down again to teleport it.

"Dicky, are you ready?" he asked his brother.

Dicky nodded determinedly, but there was something unsure about him.

"Okay, as soon as Ricky teleports it, you've got to rip it apart," Nicky instructed to Dicky.

"Rip it to pieces," Dicky mumbled to himself.

"We're ready," Dawn said with a final tone.

She and Nicky stepped away from the other two as Ricky lay the magazine on the end table by the door. They could see his mouth mime, "three... two... one," and then the magazine glowed blue. They all held their breaths and could feel their hearts smatter against the inside of their chests. The magazine was consumed by the glow, and it disappeared. Dicky immediately made a slashing motion with his hand. Then it happened. The energy shock wave they had seen once before emitted from the place the magazine had disappeared. It expanded quickly in a circle, hitting each one of them in the process. Then it faded into air. The same bubbly feeling they had gotten the first time appeared in their chests. Something had definitely changed.

Dawn's hair, which had been slowly turning back to blonde from red turned back to its original color with a _crack_.

"Did... did we do it?" Ricky asked.

"It seems so," Dawn said, breathing out for the first time.

She went to teleport over to the end table to check for any traces of the magazine. She stepped into the air and expected to end up five meters from where she was. Instead, she found herself exactly where the step would have taken her normally. She looked down at the floor, but where her feet should have been, there was just air.

It became very clear that the others had noticed what had happened to. Nicky sighed loudly, Dicky groaned, and Ricky let out one of his classic annoyed breaths.

It struck Dawn first then that she hadn't gotten her powers back. She had gotten Ricky's powers.

"Are you kidding me!?" she roared. At the same time she reappeared to the others.

Nicky fell backwards onto the couch and sighed again.

"Who's got what powers now?" he asked with a tone of hopelessness. Just then, a depressing gray color started spreading over his hair.

"You've got shape-shifting," Ricky said. "So it's us who've got to switch us back again," he gestured to himself and Dicky.

Dicky lifted his hand to make the nearest thing; a vase of flowers, levitate. While his efforts weren't wasted, they came to the wrong result, as the blue glow of spatial jumps started consuming the vase instead.

"So we've just switched with each other, and you two have switched with each other," Nicky cleared up.

"Which means those two have got to try to switch us back _again_. You better do it better this time," Dawn told Ricky and Dicky.

"Hey, don't blame us, it's _his_ fault we got switched in the first place," Dicky pointed at Nicky, who immediately sat up from the couch. His hair turned back to dark brown in the blink of an eye.

"It's just as much your fault!" he shouted.

"Come on! You're the one who caused the switch!"

"That wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the argument," Nicky quieted down his voice, but it was still filled with anger.

"Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't _claimed_ our room so you could make out with a girl," Dicky retorted.

"Oh, I'm sorry I have my own life!" Nicky pushed himself off the couch and stormed up the stairs, his hair now brilliantly scarlet.

Dicky looked after his figure disappearing into the upstairs hallway with a confused expression that indirectly asked, "did I do that?". The older two had watched the whole thing with mixed horror and interest.

"Maybe... we don't bring up the argument anymore," Ricky suggested quietly.

* * *

Nicky only showed his face once more that day. At first he had stormed up and locked himself into the boys's room again, until he remembered that was what set off this whole thing in the first place. Then he had barricaded himself into the backyard by putting the outside table and chairs in front of the door and gate. He had called Malou immediately and told her everything: She responded with the exact comfort he needed.

The other three got into immediate action practicing their new powers. Dawn and Ricky both tried to instruct Dicky on how to teleport things, and Dicky did his best to explain to Ricky how he made things levitate.

Neither of them made any progress that day. Dicky could only get the teleportation glow to make outlines around the objects they practiced on, and Ricky fell over after making a bowl fly a foot over the coffee table.

When they had switched for the second time and first used their new powers it had been much easier. They had thought their original powers were back, and used the new switched ones similarly to how they used their normal ones. Now that they put thought and effort into using their new ones it was much harder. This wasn't how the powers were supposed to be used. They should be effortless and as easy as waving ones hand. But once they had realized they were supposed to not put in too much effort, it was impossible not to do it.

When evening rolled around, Nicky had still not come in from the backyard. The table still stood blocking the door out, and he wouldn't answer when they pushed it open a tiny bit and shouted his name. Tom and Anne returned from work in time for dinner. Anne put together her meatloaf, and called the quads to dinner.

Dawn opened the door for Dicky and Ricky. She walked in last, cast a look back at the door, and rubbed her hand on her side, as if the door handle had just bitten her.

"It's meatloaf night!" Anne cheerfully announced to them.

None of them cheered.

"I've added paprika!" Anne added, expecting some kind of appreciation. When she got none, her eyes immediately landed on Nicky's empty chair, and she frowned. "Where's Nicky?"

"Back yard," Dawn answered tiredly. "He's barricaded the door."

"Then why don't you teleport out and go get him?" Tom asked. Dawn had never had any problem interrupting others.

"Why should I bother?" Dawn asked, making her parents furrow their brows. "If he wants to skip dinner he can."

"But it's meatloaf night," Anne complained with a whiny voice. "He loves it!" She got a determined wrinkle between her eyes. "I'm calling him and telling him to come inside."

She walked with certain steps to her phone, which she picked up and dialed Nicky's number. Instantly, the cheery ringtone of Nicky's phone was heard from outside. Dawn flew out of her chair to look out the window to the backyard. She spotted Nicky's phone buzzing on the table in front of the door. But no Nicky. Dawn stood up on her tippy-toes and stretched out her neck to see the entire backyard, but she still couldn't see her brother.

"Mom. He's not there."

As Anne put down the phone with horror in her facial expression, Dawn etched a bit to the side. She could see the gate that led you out of the backyard. Nicky's barricade was gone from it, and it was slightly open.

"He's left."

"What?" Anne asked.

"He's gone out the gate."

In one swift motion, Anne put the meatloaf tray down on the table and ran out through the kitchen door; obviously to check the front yard. Tom followed. When the three quads heard the front door close, they immediately got up into a quaddle.

"D'you think he left because of us?" Dicky asked.

"Of course he has, why else?" Dawn answered irritably.

"Has he ran away?" Dicky asked.

"Maybe he's just gone on a walk to clear his thoughts," Ricky suggested.

"Yeah, sure, because Nicky does that," Dawn shut down Ricky's thought. "He's ran away from us."

"Are you sure?" Ricky asked.

"Did you see him earlier; he looked ready to kill us!"

"So what do we do?" Dicky asked, now sounding a bit worried.

"Absolutely nothing," Dawn answered simply. She nodded confidently.

"_What_?" the two boys asked in disbelief.

"Come on!" Dawn hissed impatiently. "You know Nicky. He'll come home in like an hour."

Ricky looked down at the floor and nodded. Dicky looked to be in deep thought.

"And if he doesn't?" he asked dramatically.

"You know he will," Dawn responded, though she knew herself that she also wondered the same thing.


	8. Problems

**I have nothing to say, so I'm just gonna respond to reviews.**

_**Ryan Harper -**_** Ending a story on seven chapters isn't my style. That end would be way too abrupt. I need some more drama before I end this story.**

_**Guest - 1:**_** Thank you! That is exactly what I want to do with characters from comedies. It makes them seem more human. Thank you so incredibly much! This review made my day on a whole new level. **

_**Guest - 2:**_** Thanks a lot! I will definitely tell you more about Malou. I wanna develop her more.**

_**Guest - 3:**_** Thanks, thanks, thanks! Of course I will update.**

* * *

After eating dinner in a silence where Anne took a loud, deep breath every five seconds, Tom kept looking over his shoulder as if expecting to see Nicky waltz through the door, and the other quads attempted to have a non-verbal conversation using grimaces, head nods and raised eyebrows, Dawn pulled Ricky and Dicky into the closest room where they wouldn't be overheard: the downstairs bathroom. She closed and locked the door behind them.

"Okay - so Nicky's been gone for too long now," she stated shortly. "We need to do something."

"Just a few minutes ago you said we shouldn't do anything," Ricky said.

"Didn't you hear me?" Dawn hissed. "He's been gone for _too long_."

Ricky and Dicky frowned. Dawn sighed exasperatedly.

"Remember when he ran away when we were eight. He came back after an hour because he didn't want to miss dinner," she explained.

"That was six years ago!" Ricky yelled.

"If he wanted to run away now, I don't think he would come home _for dinner_," Dicky said.

"It's meatloaf night," Dawn reminded them. "He can't resist it."

Dicky and Ricky exchanged looks.

"Good point."

"I think something is seriously wrong here," Dawn continued, a bit too dramatically.

Finally, her brothers agreed.

"Quaddle," she called. The three of them huddled together, their heads a touch closer than usual now that they were missing a quad.

"Where would Nicky go if he ran away?" Ricky asked.

"Some food place?" Dicky suggested.

"His life doesn't revolve around food," Ricky replied irritably. He switched tone to unsurely suggest, "School?"

"He's not you," Dicky shot back.

"I know!" Dawn piped up. "Malou! Him wanting to spend time with her is the ground reason all of this is happening!"

"Of course!" Ricky exclaimed.

"Who's got her number?" Dicky asked. None of them did anything to show that they did.

"That's a problem," Dawn stated the obvious.

"No, it's not," Ricky said quickly. "Nicky left his phone out in the backyard."

"Then let's get it!" Dawn left the quaddle immediately, and ran out of the bathroom. The boys followed her, and they stopped in the kitchen. Dawn turned to Ricky, and gestured at the outdoor table blocking the door.

"Move it," she commanded.

"What? How?" Ricky asked weakly.

"Do whatever Nicky told Dicky last time we switched."

Ricky nodded, but he wasn't completely convinced he could do, or if he even remembered correctly. He could hear Nicky's voice in his head instructively telling Dicky to concentrate on the object and imagine it moving. He lifted his hand towards the table outside, just like he had seen Nicky do countless times. In his head he imagined that the table flew away. He put energy into it the same way he did when making things invisible. The table outside started shaking lightly. Somewhere in the background Dawn cheered him on. Slowly but surely, the table started moving away from the door. The very second it was around a meter away from the door, Dawn ran up and slammed the door open. Ricky let go of the table, and immediately felt so dizzy he had to grab hold of the work bench behind him.

Meanwhile Dawn and Dicky ran out, and Dawn grabbed Nicky's phone off the table. She pressed the home button, and the screen lit up. For a split second, Dawn did as well. Then her face fell. They needed a code to get in.

"Does anyone know the PIN to unlock Nicky's phone?" she asked unsurely.

Dicky looked over at Ricky, who now had dragged himself out of the kitchen.

"No," they both answered.

"Any guesses?" Dawn gestured for them to give her examples.

"Birthday?"

Dawn let her unsure face disappear and be replaced by disappointment.

"That would be very stupid. We all share one."

"Just try it!" Ricky said, not being in the mood at all for an argument.

Dawn quickly put in 0914, and waited for something to happen.

_Wrong PIN._

"Nope," Dawn pursed her lips.

"Is there any number that relates to cooking?" Dicky asked.

"Technically all numbers do," Ricky said.

"What else does he like that his PIN might relate to?" Dawn strictly asked them.

"Ehm...," Ricky looked out over the garden.

"Baking!" Dicky suggested. He looked really proud of himself.

"That's the same as cooking!" Dawn yelled.

"What else does he do?" Dicky asked confusedly.

Dicky's words caused a sudden thought process in Dawn's mind. She had to take a step back to prevent herself from falling over, when suddenly something made sense to her. A whole new light was shining on the situation.

"Wow...," she lowered her voice. "We really do just see him as the quad who cooks."

Ricky also let his eyebrows un-furrow, but Dicky just looked confused.

"Because he is."

"Proves my point," Dawn said. "Proves Nicky's point."

"You're right, Dawn," Ricky said, and a second later his face showed how unusual it felt for him to say the words. "We have to figure out Nicky's code to prove that we see him as more than the quad who cooks."

"Then give me some numbers!" Dawn yelled.

"I don't know any!" Ricky shouted back.

"Fine! Then I'll improvise!"

Dawn furiously pressed the home button on Nicky's phone again, and was once again faced with the PIN code screen. She pressed a random combination. _Wrong PIN. _The next was just as incorrect. While starting to boil, she let her fingers flow across the screen to spell the simple 1234. The lock screen disappeared.

"Oh," she said in a surprised tone.

"Did you get it?"

"What was it?"

"1234."

"Is he serious?!" Ricky said loudly.

"We don't have time to discuss the worthless code, we gotta call our brother's girlfriend," Dawn went directly to the call app. The seven previous calls were all either from or to Malou. She pressed one of them, and the beeps started going through. While waiting for Malou to answer, Dawn pressed the loud speaker button to enable Dicky and Ricky also hearing.

"_Hey_!" Malou spoke in a sweet voice on the other side of the phone.

"Hi Malou, it's Dawn, Ricky and Dicky," Dawn immediately made it clear for Malou that it was not Nicky she was talking to. She did not want to know what their phone calls were like.

"_Oh_," Malou's tone changed in an instant. "_Why are _you _calling me from _Nicky's _phone_?"

"Long story short; Nicky's gone," Ricky explained. "Do you know where he is?"

"_I'm sorry, but no. Why's he gone? What's happened_?" Malou sounded worried.

"Nothing serious," Ricky said in an attempt to calm her down. That attempt was a bit ruined when Dicky added, "We think."

"So do you have any idea where he's gone?" Dawn interrupted the boys.

"_Absolutely not_," Malou answered.

"So he's not with you?" Ricky said.

"_He isn't_," Malou said.

"Okay, bye," Dawn quickly ended the call before Malou could even reply. "What do we do?" she turned to her brothers.

Both of them shrugged. They had hit a road block.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the quads had all done their best to think about other things. Dicky and Ricky had thrown themselves on the couch to watch some Netflax, and Dawn had gone to her room to fold some origami animals. Once her entire bed was covered in swans, she moved down to the living room with the boys.

They were in the middle of an episode of The Raincoat Academy, when they suddenly heard a key in the front door lock. Then the door swung open, and in walked no one but Nicky. The three other quads had all turned to look at him, and when he noticed their shocked faces, he froze in the middle of kicking off his shoes.

"Where were you!?" Dawn shouted irritably.

For a few seconds Nicky was quiet, quite obviously contemplating something in his head.

"Not here," his final answer was.

"Oh thanks, we didn't notice," Ricky rolled his eyes.

"Yes, we did," Dicky leaned in and hissed in Ricky's ear. "That's why we called Malou."

A small snort of laughter was heard from Nicky's end of the room. All the three heads turned there again. There Nicky stood, trying to hide a smile in his hand. Dawn narrowed her eyes and smoothly got off the couch. She went right up to Nicky, and looked him seriously in the eye. His amused smile faded.

"Where were you?" she repeated calmly.

"Fine," Nicky sighed defeatedly. "I went to Malou's house."

* * *

_**Four hours earlier.**_

"Oh, I'm sorry I have my own life!" Nicky flew off the couch and ran to the staircase. He could feel the tears behind his eyes welling up as he climbed it two steps at a time.

The door to the boys's room was already open, so it was easy for Nicky to go in. He swung his hand back out of habit in a failed attempt to telekinetically shut the door. When the door didn't slam shut on its own, and he had to go back and push it with his hands, everything felt like it was crumbling apart again. It was just like the night when they switched. Flashbacks to that night hit Nicky like a bus when he looked at the door he had shut and the cat toy on his bedside table. Just as quickly as he had entered, he stormed out of the room and ran down the stairs. The other three quads immediately started shouting apologies and other words from the couch, but he ignored them. He went straight to the kitchen, through which he went out into the back yard. Before anyone could follow him, he pulled the patio table to stand in front of the door. Not a long time had passed before multiple chairs had also been dragged there, and another few of the pieces of outside furniture stood in front of the gate in the fence. No one would be able to get into the backyard for a while.

Once Nicky knew he was safe from interruptions, he broke down, very much like the evening of the argument. The only difference was that back then, things started levitating - now his hair switched constantly between scarlet and sapphire blue. Rain was lightly falling down over him, making everything worse. The world was working against him; he was sure of it. Everything was going wrong. His legs were shaking, and soon he fell down on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

Against his will, his mind replayed everything that had gone wrong. He could swear he was subconsciously avoiding every good part of the last few weeks.

His siblings had found out about his relationship with Malou in the worst way possible, and they had immediately tried to put an end to it. Because of that, _Dawn_ had switched their powers with _her_ teleportation abilities. Dicky and Ricky blamed him. Neither invisibility nor shapeshifting felt right for him. Everything was failing. His powers, his relationship with his siblings, and his ability to remain stable.

He could hear his own voice from a few weeks before in his head, shouting, "_I __mean that the second I have something special, you ruin it_!" His sudden outburst had been just as much of a surprise for him as it had been for the others. He had thought about his siblings taking things from him for years, but had never really said anything. The things never really bothered him enough. Telling him he ought to stop seeing Malou had crossed the line by a full mile. Something he had never known was in him had suddenly taken control. From there everything went downhill. Then he was there, in the backyard, tears of mixed fury and sorrow flowing from his eyes. Everything was dark. He wasn't sure it would fix itself again. Would he ever get his telekinesis back? Would his siblings always blame him for switching their powers? Would things go back to normal? He didn't see much hope.

Then, from nowhere, a light appeared in his darkness. It shone with such brightness that Nicky's head automatically lifted from his knees. The most wonderful thing in his life had just came back into his mind with all her glory and happiness. Nicky knew what he was going to do. He pushed himself of the wet grass, ran to the gate and pushed away all of the furniture in front of it. Then he was out.


End file.
